A yellow beer, a head is quite small and white. Aroma has fruitness, wheat, flowers. Taste has fruitness, sourness of wheat, aromatic and spicyness. Medium bodied. Somehow weird, decent.

The blonde on in this stereotypically designed blonde-dubbel-tripel triangle commissioned by Oxfam, bottle from an Oxfam shop in Ghent. Off-white, cobweb-lacing, foamy, large-bubbled yet stable head, misty peach blonde robe with ochre-ish tinge. Aroma of banana peel, damp straw, freshly cut red apple, white bread crumbs, peach, hint of white grape juice somehow, coriander seed, grass. Crisp fruity onset, green pear and medium ripe banana, freshly cut apples, very fizzy and minerally carbonation; supple body, a tad powdery but not unpleasantly so, with a bread crumb-like pale malt middle and a softly dusty-spicy coriander seed note accentuated by fermentation-derived spicy phenols and a floral hop note providing gentle end bitterishness. Bit dirty in the end as well, with lingering yeasty breadiness. Typical Belgian style blonde with a clearly yeasty profile, nothing wrong here but I’m not in a hurry to seek out the tripel version which I apparently overlooked…

Oxfam apparently marketing a new brand, this time brewed by Géants in Irchonwelz; bottle from the Oxfam shop right across the Sint-Pieters train station in Ghent. Greyish beige, mousy, cobweb-lacing, large-bubbled head on a cloudy caramel brown beer with ruddy hue. Aroma of acorn shells on a forest color, soaking wet old cocoa powder or indeed old school chocolate milk with rainwater replacing the milk, caramel, apple peel, dried blackberries, brown sugar, lots of damp earth, dry red wine-like touch, tea, cherries. Sourish and sweetish onset, notes of plums, red apples and blackberries but all in a very simple way and with the sourishness remaining dull, soft and ‘dim’ with a dirty edge, so clearly unintentional and the result of infection no doubt related to the added cocoa; fizzy carbonation, caramelly and softly nutty dark malt body, lean and retaining that dirty sourish aspect; the sharp, numbing carbonation effect also remains till the end, distracting from the actual flavour. Earthy finish with a mild herbal and tea-ish hop bitter note and less mild spicy phenols (cloves, nutmeg). Messy, dirty and clearly a bit infected, but nevertheless more interesting than earlier Oxfam dark beers (I prefer this over older Huyghe ‘dubbels’ commissioned by Oxfam, to name something). A full-fledged imperial chocolate stout would be the true revelation in this particular context – perhaps with a dash of fair trade coffee thrown in?

Bronzen medaille World Beer Awards 2019.

A solid saison, dry, clean yeast flavor coming through. Funky, farmhouse, well made for the style. Online belgian beer factory

Bottle from Oxfam Scheldewindeke. Light hazy blond colour, creamy white foam. Lots of carbonation. Very grainy, malty nose. Taste is malty, dry and bitter, light sweetness. A bit too much carbonation.